Rings, bracelets, pins, necklaces, and other items of jewelry need to be periodically cleaned to maintain their appearance. Liquid cleaning solutions are effective to remove some types of dirt from items of jewelry, but hardened soap, hand lotion and the like are usually unaffected by liquid cleaners. In order to remove these types of materials from jewelry, steam cleaning machines have been employed in the jewelry industry for many years. Steam cleaning machines generally comprise a steam generating unit such as a boiler or the like connected to a pipe having a nozzle at its free end. An article of jewelry is held by tweezers directly in the path of steam emitted at relatively high velocity from the nozzle of the machine. The combination of the heat of the steam, and the force at which it impacts the item of jewelry, is effective to remove even hardened soap, hand lotion and similar contaminants from the jewelry.
Although steam cleaning machines of the type described above are effective, they suffer from a common problem. It has been found that individual gem stones in an article of jewelry can be dislodged from worn or damaged settings by the force of the jet of steam. The stones are propelled by the steam jet onto the floor, work benches, counters, equipment, shelves, open boxes etc., and can be extremely difficult to locate. Whereas very small stones can simply be replaced, large and valuable stones must be recovered no matter how long it may take the jeweler to find them.
This problem has been addressed, to some extent, in the cleaning device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,738 to Hubbard. The Hubbard patent teaches a jewelry cleaning device which comprises a cylindrical housing formed of clear plastic or other transparent material having an open top, an open bottom and an access opening formed between the top and bottom. The top end is closed by a top cover having an integrally mounted nozzle which attaches via threads to the steam pipe of a steam cleaning machine of the type described above. The bottom end of the housing is closed by a bottom cover which mounts a screen. An item of jewelry is inserted into the access opening in the housing in the path of steam emitted from the nozzle, and the steam exits the housing through the screen in the bottom cover. In event one or more gem stones become dislodged from the piece of jewelry during the cleaning operation, they are captured on the screen and remain within the housing.
A number of deficiencies are present in the design disclosed in the Hubbard patent. Not all steam cleaning machines necessarily employ the same sized steam pipe, and therefore the nozzle which is an integral part of the top cover of the Hubbard device may not be useful with some machines. Although different sized nozzles could be employed, this increases costs and requires such different nozzles to be maintained in inventory. The access opening in the housing of the Hubbard device cannot be opened and closed, i.e., it is always open. Consequently, gem stones which are dislodged from an item of jewelry within the housing can escape through the open access opening. Even if a dislodged gem stone remains in the housing, it is difficult to manipulate tweezers or the like through the access opening and grasp a gem stone resting on the screen at the bottom of the housing. Consequently, the bottom cover must be removed to provide access to the interior of the housing. Since the bottom cover telescopically fits over the bottom end of the housing, a stone resting on the screen of the bottom cover could be jarred off of same in the course of removing the bottom cover from the housing, particularly when the cover becomes wet with condensed steam. Finally, in the course of a cleaning operation, steam will condense on the plastic housing and can substantially reduce visibility within the housing interior. In order to completely clean an item of jewelry, it must be manipulated with respect to the fixed steam nozzle and the jeweler has to observe the position of each gem stone as it is being cleaned. If his or her vision is obstructed, the steam cleaning operation will take much longer and/or not be as effective.